LETTER TO G. V. CHICHERIN

Published:First published in part in 1945 in the book,Istoriya diplomatii, Vol. 3, Moscow-Leningrad.

      Published in full in 1959 inLenin Miscellany XXXVI.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1976,

      Moscow,Volume 45,

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14.III.1922.

ComradeChicherin:

Ihave read your letter of 10/III. I think yours is an
excellent exposition of the pacifist
programme.[3]

Thewhole point is to have the skill to expound it and
our commercial proposals loudly and clearlybeforethe
fold-up (if “they” do try to fold it up in haste).

Youand our delegation have enough skill to do this.

Ithink you have made some 13 points (I enclose your
letter with my remarks), which are excellent.

Weshall have everyone intrigued by saying: “We have
a most broad arid comprehensive programme!” If they
prevent us from making it public, weshall printit with
our protest.

Inevery case we make this “little” reservation: we
Communists haveour owncommunist programme (the Third
International);neverthelesswe consider it to be our duty
asbusinessmen to support(even if the odds are 10,000 to 1)
thepacifists in theother, i.e., bourgeois, camp (taking
accountof itsSecond and Two-and-a-Half
Internationals[4]).

Thiswill be “genteel” and have teeth, and will help
to demoralise the enemy.

Ifwe adopt such tactics we shall win out,even ifGenoa
is a failure. We shallnot acceptany unprofitable deal.

Withcommunist greetings,Yours,Lenin

P.S.Comrade Chicherin:

Whynot add even more “genteel” bite and say the
following:

Wepropose (§ 14) abolition ofallwar debts and (§ 15)revision(on the basis of the 13 §§) of the Versailles andallmilitary
treaties,[5]

butnot through the majority riding roughshod over the
minority, but on the basis of anagreement, becausein
this casewe are businessmen andcannotput forward any
other principleherethan the commercial one! We don’t
want to have it all our way with the United States through
a majority; we are businessmen; we want topersuadeit!!
Apollof allthe states
andan attemptto persuadethose
who do not agree. This is both genteel and unacceptable
to the bourgeois. We shall disgrace and humiliate them in
a very “genteel” way.

Hereis a variant: submission of a minority of countries
(in population) to the majority can be proposedseparatelywithin each of the two camps: the bourgeois and the
Soviet (the one recognising private property, and the other
not recognising it).

Letus put forward both the project and the variant.

Lesrieurs seront avec
nous![1]

X)[2]an additional point: an exemption to be made for
small-holdersinsofar asit can be precisely proved
that these are not fictitious but actual toiling
smallholders.

MARGINAL NOTES
	       ON A LETTER FROM G. V. CHICHERIN

COMRADE LENIN

March10,1922

EsteemedVladimir Ilyich:

Iearnestly request you to read through the proposals
made below and let me have your instructions. We have
to put forward “a broad pacifist programme”, that is one
of the most important elements of our forthcoming act;
we have not, however, got one. We have only the separate
fragmentary points in the first directives of the Central
Committee. I am here making a first attempt to approach
the task.

Thechief difficulty is that the present international
political and economic forms serve as permanent fig-leaves
covering the predatory acts of the imperialists; in
particular, these forms serve as a weapon against us. The
League of Nations is simply a tool of the Entente, which has
already used it against us. You have yourself pointed out
that arbitration between the bourgeois and Soviet states is
impossible; nevertheless arbitration is an indispensable
weapon in the pacifist arsenal. The internationalisation of the
Chinese-Eastern Railway is a euphemism for its
alienation from us and from China and its seizure by the Entente.
A foreign bank of issue in Russia and the introduction of
the dollar into Russia, like the introduction of a universal
single gold unit in general, would be the most effective
weapon for complete economic bondage to America.

Wehave to introduce something new into the customary
modern international forms to prevent those forms from
being turned into a tool of imperialism. This new something
is provided by our experience and our creative activity aswell as by the creative action of life itself in the process
of the growing ruin and break-up of the imperialist world.
The world war has resulted in the intensification of the
liberation movement of all oppressed and colonial peoples.
World states are coining undone at the seams. Our
international programme must bring all oppressed colonial
peoples into the international scheme. The right of all peoples
to secession or to home rule must be recognised. The
African Conference of 1885 resulted in the horrors of the
Belgian Congo, because the European powers at that
conference indulged in philanthropy towards the Negroes and that
philanthropy turned out to be a fig-leaf covering the most
barbaric exploitation. The novelty of our international
scheme must be that the Negro andother colonial peoplesparticipateon an equal footingwith the European peoples1)|||| true!2)in conferences and commissions and have the rightto
prevent interferencein their internal affairs. Another novelty
is theobligatory participation of working-class
organisations.The demand for trade unions to take part in a future
European congress was very popular in British
working-class literature during the world war. We have actually
realised this by including three members of the All-Russia
Central T.U.C. in our delegation. We must lay down that
one-third of the votes in the international organisation we
are going to propose should belong to the working-class
organisations represented in each delegation. These two
novelties, however, are not sufficient to protect the oppressed
peoples and downtrodden countries from the domination
of the imperialists because the upper stratum of the
colonial peoples may well be puppets in the same way as
treacherous labour leaders are. The inclusion of these two opens
up the way for future struggles. Working-class
organisations will be confronted with the task of struggling for the
liberation of the colonial peoples, for aid to the Soviet
power and against imperialist depredation. The leaders,
however, will try to betray them. Therefore another thing to
be established is
3)the principle of non-intervention on the
part of international conferences or congresses in the
internal affairs of various peoples.Voluntaryco-operation
and aid for the weak on the part of thestrongmust be
applied without subordinating the former to the latter.

Asa result we have a very bold and completely new
proposal—A WORLD CONGRESS with all peoples of the
world participating on a completely equal footing, on the
basis of the declaration of the right to self-determination,the right to complete secession or home rule for all
oppressed peoples, and also with the participation of
working-class organisations to the extent of one-third of the entire
congress. The purpose of the congress willnotbe

4))compulsion of the minoritybutcomplete agreement. The
congress will help by its moral authority. In practice it will set
uptechnical commissionsfor the implementation of our

pre-
((

extensive economic programme of world-wide rehabilitation.

Allthe projects for a League of Nations or Association
of Nations contain only two types of proposals concerning
methods of compulsion to ensure fulfilment of the decisions
of an Association of Nations—either the establishment of
composite armies with contingents from all states or the
investment of a punitive mandate in a certain power or
several such powers. In the first case we would have
something incompetent because a composite army made up of
contingents from numerous countries is of no use. In the
second case the League of Nations or Association of Nations
is nothing but an excuse to justify fresh conquests by the
more influential powers.correct!
|||And so it is essential to eliminate
completely the element of compulsion or punitive
expeditions and leave to the World Congress only its moral
authority, allowing it to be an arena for discussions aimed at
reaching agreement. The prevention of war is a matter for
arbitration. There are two types of arbitration—the
voluntary appeal of the two parties to an arbiter, to The Hague
Tribunal, for instance—in such cases the decision of the
arbiter is binding—or the second method, an example of
which is to be found in the article on arbitration contained
in the treaty between Great Britain and the United States
according to which, in the event of there being a danger
of war, special conciliation commissions are set up to which
the two parties must appeal but whose decision is merely
advisory although for a definite period, for instance a year,
the proceedings of the commissions continue; this second
method has as its purpose the postponement of the
beginning of military action to enable the passions of both
parties to subside in the legally established interval and
lessen the conflict. In the first case appeal to the arbiter is
not obligatory but decisions are binding. In the second
case appeal to the arbiter is obligatory but decisions are
not binding, and the parties are bound only for the legally
established period.

Atthe present moment we cannot avoid this alternative.
The proposed World Congress could take over The Hague
Tribunal with its advisory arbitration and other services.
We shall, however, consider that the only court of arbitration
between a capitalist state and the Soviet state can be that(5)in which an equal number of members is appointed by each

5)

party so that half the members will be imperialists and half
will be Communists. At the same time we shall propose a

(6)==

general reduction of armaments based on the theses we have

6)

established with the Revolutionary Military Council of the
Republic; developing the traditions of The Hague and
Geneva conventions we shall propose adding a number of

prohibitions to the rules of war—the abolition of submarines,

7)

chemical gases, mortars, flame-throwers and armed air
battles.

Thetechnical commissions set up by the World Congress

8)

will guide the implementation of a broad programme of
world-wide rehabilitation. This programme will not be
imposed by force. It will be a voluntary proposal that appeals
to the advantage of every participant.Aid will be given
to the weak.In this way world railways, river and sea

9)

routes must be laid down. The internationalisation of
those routes will be a matter of gradual development since
the compulsion of those who resist will not be allowed.
International technical commissions will propose to
individual countries economic and technical aid for the
creation of super-main lines, for the regulation of traffic on
international rivers, for the use of international harbours and
for the technical improvement of world sea routes. We
shall propose that the capital of the advanced countries
should build asuper-main line London-Moscow-Vladivostok10)

(Peking) and we shall explain that it will open up the
incalculable wealth of Siberia for the use of all. In general,
aid from the strong for the weak will be the basic principle
of world rehabilitation which must be based on economic
geography and. the planned distribution of resources. A world
gold unit can make its appearance only as a result of the
improvement of the economically weak countries with the
aid of the strong: this improvement is in the interest of all
since world ruin affects the strong countries as well, giving
rise to unparalleled unemployment, even in America. The
strong, by helping the weak, are opening up for themselves
markets and sources of raw materials. Proceeding from
these premises we shall propose the
11 )planned distribution
of the gold that is at the moment lying idlein the vaults
of the American banks. This planned distribution ofgoldin all countries must be combined with the planned
distribution of orders, trade, supplies of scarce materials, in
general, with all-round economic aid for the ruined
countries.

12)

This aid may take the form ofloans,since under a
planned economy the return of the money would begin in
a few years. Under this heading we place the Barter
Institute plan (Keynes), or the Zentralstelle, or national trade
centres. If Germany opposes us by a single Zentralstelle
in place of individual merchants it will be bad for us since
it would be a means of imposing bad goods on us at high
prices. If, however, the Zentralstellen areinstruments
for the planned, world-wide distributionof essential
commodities

13)

and a means of renderingaid to weakcountriesby
the strong, they would be essential components of an
extensive programme of economic rehabilitation.The grain sent
to us by America is the beginning of the international
distribution of food. Within the Entente there was a
partially planned distribution of fuel during the war; one of the
chief elements of the broad programme should be the
systematic distribution of oil and coal, but in this case, too,
the element of compulsion and repression must be
eliminated. The international technical commissions must
elaborate, in very general outline, a programme for the
planned distribution of fuel and energy resources. All these
points, taken together, provide a picture of what is
theoretically possible under the bourgeois system, but which in
historically conditioned reality will come up against
national egoism and the predatory acts of the capitalist
oligarchy.

Withcommunist greetings,Georgi Chicherin

[1]Weshall have the last laugh.—Ed.

[2]Thissymbol is not to be found in the text.—Ed.

[3]OnFebruary 28, 1922, the Politbureau of the R.C.P.(B.) C.C.            

approved, with slight amendments, Lenin’s “Draft Decision of       

the R.C.P.(B.) C.C. on the Tasks of (he Soviet Delegation at            

Genoa”, and instructed the delegation to work out in detail the        

programme which it was to present at the conference (see present,       

edition, Vol. 42, pp. 401–04). In accordance with these directives,

[4][MISSING]

[5][MISSING]